Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at age 82, got his start at Syracuse University, CNY radio and TV stations

Before Dick Clark built his reputation as the everlastingly youthful host of “American Bandstand” and “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” he was a youthful Syracuse University student who started his broadcasting career at radio stations around Central New York.

Clark died of a heart attack Wednesday at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., where he had gone the day before for an outpatient procedure. He was 82. Clark had continued performing even after he suffered a stroke in 2004 that affected his ability to speak and walk.

Long dubbed “the world’s oldest teenager” because of his boyish appearance, Clark bridged the rebellious new music scene and traditional show business, and was equally comfortable whether chatting about music with Sam Cooke or bantering with Ed McMahon about TV bloopers. He thrived as the founder of Dick Clark Productions, supplying movies, game and music shows, beauty contests and more to TV. Among his credits: “The $25,000 Pyramid,” “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes” and “The American Music Awards.”

As a television entrepreneur and producer, Clark ranks with Johnny Carson, Walter Cronkite and Oprah Winfrey, said Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, where he is also a trustee professor of television and popular culture at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

For “Bandstand,” which started in the 1950s, Clark acted as sort of a “Trojan horse” for rock music, Thompson said. “He was the clean-cut, young fellow who introduced it,” reassuring nervous parents and helping bring the then-controversial music into the mainstream, Thompson said.

Clark’s influence on how people celebrate New Year’s Eve was just as profound, Thompson said. “He was associated with New Year’s Eve even more than Guy Lombardo,” Thompson said. “I think of Dick Clark more than I think of Father Time and Baby New Year. ... He kind of represents that holiday.”

Clark was a 1951 graduate of Syracuse’s radio-TV school and landed his first broadcasting gigs at local stations. While in college, Clark worked at SU’s WAER-FM radio. In the summer of 1949, he worked as a replacement announcer at WRUN radio in Utica, where his father was the station manager. When still a college senior at SU, Clark was hired — for $1 an hour — at Syracuse’s WOLF-AM radio.

Following graduation, Clark was hired full time at that station. But Utica became his next steppingstone to fame, as he left WOLF and went back to WRUN. But radio couldn’t contain the hard-working and star-climbing Dick Clark. While in Utica, he transitioned to television, at a Utica-based TV station.

Clark’s next step launched him into the stratosphere with a move to a major broadcast market. He was hired at Philadelphia powerhouse WFIL-AM radio and TV. At the age of 26 and already a veteran broadcaster, Clark, with his youthful good looks, was hired as the host of WFIL’s “American Bandstand” TV show, which was filmed in Philadelphia.

Clark was sentimental about his family, his time in Central New York. In a 1988 interview with the Syracuse Herald-Journal, Clark said he had fond memories of a cold city in the 1940s and ’50s (he enrolled at SU in 1947).

“I remember the winters,” said Clark, laughing. “No, my recollections of Syracuse are all positive. .. And 10 members of my family or other relatives went to the university. My daughter was the last to graduate, a couple of years ago.”

In a 2002 interview with The Post-Standard, Clark talked about living in Central New York and working seven nights a week, spinning records as a radio DJ fresh out of SU. When he came home late at night, Clark recalled, his wife and baby were sleeping. His dachsund, named after an SU roommate, waited up.

“The thing I remember about Louie was he was always there to greet me,” Clark said. “He was just a terrific dog.”

Over the years, Clark returned to Syracuse often. In 1993, he came to town to be inducted into the Syracuse Walk of Stars at the Landmark Theatre in downtown Syracuse. At the time, he told a reporter he was proud of his “American Bandstand” connections and all that came of it. “I raised almost four generations of kids on it,” said Clark. “The show has become an American icon, of which I’m part. So I’m very proud.”

The original “American Bandstand” was one of network TV’s longest-running series as part of ABC’s daytime lineup from 1957 to 1987. It later aired for a year in syndication and briefly on the USA Network. Over the years, it introduced stars ranging from Buddy Holly to Madonna. The show’s status as an American cultural institution was solidified when Clark donated Bandstand’s original podium and backdrop to the Smithsonian Institution.

Clark joined “Bandstand” in 1956 after Bob Horn, who’d been the host since its 1952 debut, was fired. Under Clark’s guidance, it went from a local Philadelphia show to a national phenomenon. “I played records, the kids danced, and America watched,” was how Clark once described the series’ simplicity. In his 1958 hit “Sweet Little Sixteen,” Chuck Berry sang that “they’ll be rocking on Bandstand, Philadelphia, P-A.”

As a host, he had the smooth delivery of a seasoned radio announcer. As a producer, he had an ear for a hit record. He also knew how to make wary adults welcome this odd new breed of music in their homes.

Clark endured accusations that he was in with the squares, with critic Lester Bangs defining Bandstand as “a leggily acceptable euphemism of the teenage experience.” In a 1985 interview, Clark acknowledged the complaints. “But I knew at the time that if we didn’t make the presentation to the older generation palatable, it could kill it.”

“So along with Little Richard and Chuck Berry and the Platters and the Crows and the Jayhawks ... the boys wore coats and ties and the girls combed their hair and they all looked like sweet little kids in a high school dance,” he said.

But Clark defended pop artists and artistic freedom, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said in an online biography of the 1993 inductee. He helped give black artists their due by playing original R&B recordings instead of cover versions by white performers, and he condemned censorship.

For a time in the 1980s, he had shows on all three networks and was listed among the Forbes 400 of wealthiest Americans. Clark also was part of radio as partner in the United Stations Radio Network, which provided programs — including Clark’s — to thousands of stations.

“There’s hardly any segment of the population that doesn’t see what I do,” Clark told The Associated Press in a 1985 interview. “It can be embarrassing. People come up to me and say, ‘I love your show,’ and I have no idea which one they’re talking about.”

His stroke in December 2004 forced him to miss his annual appearance on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” He returned the following year and, although his speech at times was difficult to understand, many, including other stroke victims, praised his bravery.

Still speaking with difficulty, he continued taking part in his New Year’s shows, though in a diminished role. Ryan Seacrest became the main host. “I’m just thankful I’m still able to enjoy this once-a-year treat,” he told The Associated Press by email in December 2008 as another New Year’s Eve approached.

He was honored at the Emmy Awards in 2006, telling the crowd: “I have accomplished my childhood dream, to be in show business. Everybody should be so lucky to have their dreams come true. I’ve been truly blessed.”

He was born Richard Wagstaff Clark in Mount Vernon, Westchester County, in 1929. His father, Richard Augustus Clark, was a sales manager who worked in radio.

Clark idolized his athletic older brother, Bradley, who was killed in World War II. In his 1976 autobiography, “Rock, Roll & Remember,” Clark recalled how radio helped ease his loneliness and turned him into a fan of Steve Allen, Arthur Godfrey and other popular hosts. From Godfrey, he said, he learned that “a radio announcer does not talk to ‘those of you out there in radio land’; a radio announcer talks to me as an individual.”

In the 1960s, “American Bandstand” moved from black-and-white to color, from broadcasts five afternoons a week to once-a-week Saturday shows and from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Although its influence started to ebb, it still featured some of the biggest stars of each decade, whether Janis Joplin, the Jackson 5, Talking Heads or Prince. But Clark never did book two of rock’s iconic groups, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Elvis Presley also never performed, although Clark managed an on-air telephone interview while Presley was in the Army.

When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, Clark recalled working with him since he was a child, adding, “of all the thousands of entertainers I have worked with, Michael was THE most outstanding. Many have tried and will try to copy him, but his talent will never be matched.”

Clark kept more than records spinning with his Dick Clark Productions. Its credits included the Academy of Country Music and Golden Globe awards; TV movies including the Emmy-winning “The Woman Who Willed a Miracle” (1984), the “$25,000 Pyramid” game show and the 1985 film “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.” Clark’s clean-cut image survived a music industry scandal. In 1960, during a congressional investigation of “payola” or bribery in the record and radio industry, Clark was called on to testify.

He was cleared of any suspicions but was required by ABC to divest himself of record-company interests to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. The demand cost him $8 million, Clark once estimated. His holdings included partial ownership of Swan Records, which later released the first U.S. version of the Beatles’ smash “She Loves You.”

He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 1994 and served as spokesman for the American Association of Diabetes Educators.

“The entire SU family mourns the loss of our family member, Dick Clark,” says SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor. “More than an American icon, he was a superb guide to tectonic shifts in American popular culture for generations. We at his alma mater will remember him most fondly, however, for the warmth and generosity with which he helped guide generations of SU students as they set out to navigate the landscape of careers in the entertainment industry. Our thoughts are with Kari and the entire Clark family, and we will miss Dick greatly.”

Clark, twice divorced, had a son, Richard Augustus II, with first wife Barbara Mallery and two children, Duane and Cindy, with second wife Loretta Martin. He married Kari Wigton in 1977.

This story was reported by staff writers Bob Niedt and Charles Ellis of The Post-Standard and Lynn Elber, David Bauder and Hillel Italie of The Associated Press.

View full sizeFile photo / AP, 2002Dick Clark, host of the American Bandstand television show, introduces entertainer Michael Jackson on stage during the April 20, 2002, taping of the show's 50th anniversary special in Pasadena, Calif. Clark, the television host who helped bring rock `n' roll into the mainstream on "American Bandstand, " died Wednesday of a heart attack. He was 82.